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Ethics Assignment

Facebook – Cambridge Analytica Data Scandal

Background:

  • A data scientist hired by Cambridge Analytica created an app that allow Facebook users to complete a survey for payment but Facebook privacy policies allowed apps to access data about users’ friends.

Why is it problematic?

  • This caused tons of Facebook user data to be collected without consent from the user.
  • Even though 30,000 Facebook users consented to using the app, 87 million Facebook user data was gathered.

Engineer vs. Product Behavior:

  • It was ethically wrong for both parties let this happen and to do it in the first place. Facebook should have better privacy policies that protect their user’s data especially when they have over 1.23 billion users in 2013. It was also ethically wrong for Cambridge Analytica to scrape other user data that didn’t consent to the survey.
  • Mark Zuckerberg the CEO of Facebook did make a public apology and Facebook revised their privacy policies afterwards.
  • Facebook got fined and Cambridge Analytica filed for bankruptcy in 2018.

Valorant vs HyperFront

Background:

  • Riot Games is the company for a video game named “Valorant” and NetEase is the company for the video game “HyperFront” Valorant initially was called Project A, and HyperFront was initially called Project M.
  • They both were colorful first person shooters with unique characters and abilities but Valorant was the first one to show trailers and characters. Once Valorant released a new character, a similar character is then released by HyperFront a few weeks later.
  • There are tons of characters in HyperFront with similar abilities to Valorant.

Why is it problematic?

  • This isn’t the only time there has been copyright issues of video games from Chinese companies.
  • China has copyright laws to protect the copyrights registered in China. China does not protect copyrights which are not registered in China but registered in other countries.
  • In the landmark case of Apple vs Microsoft regarding GUI, US courts ruled that looks and feels cannot be copyrighted. Chinese companies are taking advantage of this ruling and stealing the looks of many foreign products.

Engineer vs. Product Behavior:

  • Legally in China it might be ok but I think it’s ethically wrong for NetEase to do this. There are tons of games that have been copied and it’s mainly from companies trying to make quick money without coming up with their own ideas.
  • I don’t really blame the engineers because usually decisions are made by the higher ups of a company with only a few people. The developers are just employees following orders and if they don’t listen, they would get fired.

Loot Box Controversies

Background:

  • Since 2017, games have been implementing a loot box system in order to gain in game cosmetics and rewards. A loot box is a consumable virtual item which can be redeemed to receive a randomized selection.
  • This has caused controversies because you aren’t guaranteed to get something you want from them even though you spent money. Sometimes you can spend upwards of $300+ and still not get something you want.
  • People believe that if you spend a certain amount of money, you should be able to get what you want and not have to gamble for it.

Why is it problematic?

  • This is problematic because it promotes gambling to kids at a very young age. Games like CSGO, Overwatch, TF2, and many other games have a form on loot box where you can spend real money for a chance to get something you want. All these games are meant for young kids.
  • Games like Apex Legends has items called “Heirlooms” where you can only get it if you got all the other items from the loot box so in order to guarantee an heirloom, you have to spend around $170 in order to get that item.
  • Gacha (toy vending machine) games are also predatory because they always release new characters where you have to gamble in order to get them. Usually these characters are super strong so if you don’t have them, you have a harder time to win so people would gamble for these characters even if they have a 1% to get them. Not all gacha games have a guarantee mechanic where you will eventually get the character but some do.

Engineer vs Product:

  • Similar to the last example, I believe it’s mainly the product that is unethical. It’s unethical that the engineer implemented this system but it’s mainly the higher ups that decide that this is ok to make and release. The engineers were just doing their job.
  • Loot boxes are predatory towards children because it promotes gambling and in order to guarantee what they want, the children would have to spend massive amounts of money in order to guarantee the item they want.
  • A bunch of games and companies have implemented this feature and Overwatch got so much backlash that it switched over to a battle pass system where you can see what you are going to get from leveling up. CSGO still have loot boxes but Valorant swapped over to a rotating market in order to avoid the public backlash of loot boxes.

Sources:

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Analytica_data_scandal
  • https://bipartisanpolicy.org/blog/cambridge-analytica-controversy/#:~:text=Cambridge%20Analytica%20claimed%20to%20be,fully%20shut%20down%20in%202015.
  • https://www.eurogamer.net/riot-sues-netease-for-its-alleged-valorant-copy-hyper-front
  • https://esports.gg/news/valorant/riot-sues-netease-valorant-hyper-front/
  • https://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/chtlj/vol38/iss2/2/#:~:text=China’s%20copyright%20law%20sets%20such,not%20violate%20China’s%20copyright%20laws.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loot_box
  • https://reason.org/policy-brief/video-game-loot-boxes-anatomy-of-a-moral-panic/#:~:text=The%20source%20of%20controversy%20here,sense%2C%20similar%20to%20slot%20machines.
  • https://esi.si.com/apex-legends/apex-legends-how-to-get-heirloom-shards#:~:text=During%20the%20past%20Anniversaries%20of,cost%20or%20buy%20the%20bundles.